What the world wears.

FSH 6.0: THE RELIGIOUS EDITION

FSH 6.0 (Fashion Six Point Oh) is a biweekly post-paris news and shade round-up. Six stories to dis-en-courage critical thinking, conspicuous consumption and/or unabashed ogling! We’ve got stuff on religion, football as religion, fashion as religion, religious bias and the Fashion Bible itself. Proceed with good faith…

Keeping Up with … the Russian Orthodox Luxury Priests

BOF won’t bring you this scoop! Russians are enthralled by the saga of an Orthodox priest who works as a provincial church librarian and loves his Gucci and Louis Vuitton nearly as much as Jesus. Church librarians in Russia pull in good cash! The Instagram account has been deleted, the priest is under disciplinary investigation, but the receipts are priceless. The symbiotic parasitism between luxury brands and Christianity spreads every which way from “Papal Prada” loafers to prosperity gospel of preachers with private jets. Hypocrisy can afford like company.

CHANEL: the Dyslexic Way to Spell CANCEL

“Chanel bans fur and exotic animal skins.” This CNN headline made me cringe-laugh. You can’t BAN something you did until you didn’t. Action verbs matter! This gives too much agency to a complicit corporate entity. Then Alton Mason became the first black male model to walk a Chanel show in over a century (!) and the media bent over backwards to celebrate another milestone. I’m happy for Alton, but could we not lavish exorbitant praise on billion dollar brands for doing the most minimal good at the last acceptable moment?! The NYC show was Egyptian-themed… Oh, Karl. #MummifyChanel

Speaking of actual Egyptian fashion… Actress Rania Youssef has been questioned for four hours by Cairo persecutors and will face the judge on January 12 for wearing a dress deemed “obscene” at a film festival red carpet. When was the last time you had to defend your style choices for four hours? Do you take safety in your clothes for granted? Still see fashion as apolitical? Some among the Egyptian diaspora see this is a sanctioned media distraction from critical domestic issues. What does Karl Lagerfeld think?!

Ballon D’Or Makes Herstory & Twerks It Away

I have been following the love affair between fashion and football for a minute. Ballon D’Or is an annual red carpet gala that brings out tuxedos onto the field. This year it was also awarded to a woman player for the first time since the prize’s inception in 1956! If faster-than-Chanel is the new marker of social progress, kudos to Ballon D’Or. Norwegian striker Ada Hegerburg won the historic trophy and was immediately asked by the show host if she could twerk on stage. The casualness of sexism in sports (and elsewhere) was on full display. Football, we must do better, dammit!

A pair of thigh-high leather boots dating back to late 15th century was unearthed on the Thames riverbank outside London making them one of the oldest fashion items on record. Oh, and the boots were still ON… a skeleton of a male human in his mid-30s at the time of his death. This find provides a rare direct link to the era for fashion historians. And a social media playground for immature memes, jokes and Madonna jabs.

Zero Vogues to Give: Condé Nast Goes Headhunting

Speaking of skeletons… Exactly 40 years after “video killed the radio star“, we are witnessing another alleged media massacre: Digital slaying Print. With revenues falling and readership turning elsewhere, Condé Nast is trying to resuscitate its comatose properties, including 23 editions of Vogue. The Fashion Bible is running out of Disciples. The crisis is not managerial, but existential. The fashion world Vogue built is no longer inhabitable. “Who and what can save Condé Nast?” asks WWD. Maybe they can drop that accént?! Hey, the gratuitous gesture got Celine through another season! #Céline